HIGHLIGHTS

CBI has issued Look Out Circular (LoC) against more than 10 executives of Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi.

Two senior officials of PNB were questioned on why daily reports were not tallied to find the difference amount.

CBI has written letters to Chief Vigilance Officer of the banks of the International banks from where the transaction took place.

Nirav Modi

HIGHLIGHTS

CBI has issued Look Out Circular (LoC) against more than 10 executives of Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi.

Two senior officials of PNB were questioned on why daily reports were not tallied to find the difference amount.

CBI has written letters to Chief Vigilance Officer of the banks of the International banks from where the transaction took place.

A special court has allowed Enforcement Directorate (ED) to issue letters rogatory to several countries including Belgium, Hong Kong, Switzerland, US, UK, Dubai, Singapore and South Africa for obtaining information about the overseas businesses and assets of Nirav Modi.

Moreover, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has issued Look Out Circular (LoC) against more than 10 top executives of Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi, who are suspected to have fled country. According to sources, these executives were asked by the agency to join the probe but after they failed to appear before the interrogators, agency decided to issues LoCs.

The investigation in the country's biggest bank fraud has revealed that Rs 11,400 scam could have been detected on the very first day, if the General Managers of International Banking Division of Punjab National Bank would have given attention to the daily bank report. The LoU's were issued by the PNB to Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi from 2011 to 2017.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday called three of the then general managers (GM) of Punjab National Bank (PNB) as the agency has started probing why the officials did not tally with the transactions made from the international bank branches on the basis of daily report.

Out of the three GMs, two were heading the International Banking of PNB while the other was heading the treasury department of PNB.

"Investigations in all all serious bank fraud cases registered by CBI recently, the CBI director Alok Kumar Verma has directed the officers in-charge of these investigations to take all necessary steps to ensure that the bank fraud case are concluded within a given time frame. He asked the officers not to spare anyone found involved in this scam, said Abhishek Dayal, Spokesperson of CBI.

Highly placed sources in the CBI said that the two senior officials of PNB were questioned on why daily reports were not tallied to find the difference amount.

Pointing out the Nostro banking system, the CBI source added that Nostro is a system when one bank keeps money at another bank and both banks need to keep records of how much money is being kept by one bank on behalf of the other.

In this case, the check was either deliberately avoided or attention was not given and that is why the scam went unnoticed and undetected from 2011 to 2017.

Even in the case that SWIFT messages were manipulated by PNB officials, it could have been detected if any of these GMs could have paid any attention on the daily report resulting in Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi defrauding the bank for over Rs 11,400 crore.

Last week, CBI has also conducted searches at the office of law firm Cyril Amarchand after the agency received the information that few documents related to Nirav Modi is with the firm. The agency claims that the documents have been seized.

Along with three general managers the CBI on Monday also quizzed Executive Director of PNB, Bramhaji Rao and the statutory auditors of PNB have been called by CBI for questioning

CBI has written letters to CVO's (Chief Vigilance Officer) of the banks of the International banks from where the transaction took place.